A client-server architecture, in general, is a distributed computing architecture that partitions tasks or work loads between servers, which may be considered as “service providers”, and clients, which may be considered as “service requesters” or “service consumers”. Often, the servers and the clients are connected via a computer network and various types of data may be transmitted between individual servers and individual clients bi-directionally over the computer network.
The servers usually have more resources and greater performance capabilities than the clients. A server may share its resources with one or more clients, such as performing certain tasks for the clients (i.e., providing services to the clients). Because a server typically has more resources than a client, the server may complete a task, especially a resource-demanding task, much faster than the client is able to.
Data exchanged between a server and a client may be represented using any suitable data format and transmitted using any suitable communications protocol. For example, when an application is executed on a server for a client, the output of the application may be represented using a structured document, such as a HyperText Markup Language (HTML) document or an Extensible Markup Language (XML) document. The server may transmit the HTML or XML document, which includes the data that represent the output of the application, to the client over a HperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) connection between the server and the client. The client, upon receiving the HTML or XML document, may consume the document and render the output of the application locally using the HTML or XML document, such as in a web browser executed on the client.